domino324:Well there you go. The rich man wins again. The only question is how? Was it straight cash, or were there some threats thrown in?

Nope, just yet another election cycle where RP siphons millions of dollars from naive pseudo-libertarians, hires friends and family for a year of luxury "campaigning", quits with a huge war chest left, and runs off into the sunset.

"It was a fair hearing, and I thought it was an acceptable environment," Stearns added. "The majority rules, and the will of [the] minority shall be heard. It's unfortunate, but that's the circumstances we have right now."

The will of the minority shall be beard, but Ron Paul isn't allowed to speak?

He probably just gave him a few pieces of gold. Keeps Ron Paul happy and believing that somebody in his party is listening to his bullshiate, and it's easier to write off on your taxes, if you're into paying those honestly. Not everybody is, I've been told.

I rode my bike past a house last night with a big RON PAUL 2012 placard in his front window. It filled the full picture window. It made him look like he was one step above the guy with the Confederate Flag in his front window on the evolutionary scale.

All of THAT. I am absolutely delighted that RON PAUL has basically been bought off. It takes a whole lot of naiveté and disingenuity to be a Paultard, and I shall delight rubbing these little factoids in their faces.

Stop referring to Ron Paul as a "libertarian". He is not. He's a hyper-conservative neo-confederate who would gladly let state governments oppress women, minorities, and the poor.

That's not libertarianism.

Not a troll-question: Isn't that what libertarianism is? Every time I've talked to a libertarian, their principal concern is that government shouldn't interfere with personal decisions like who is denied service for any reason. When the inevitability of racism/sexism/etc. is brought up, they always appeal to some nebulous force of "society" that wouldn't let that happen. "Well I would never eat at a restaurant that advertised For Whites Only. The free market would drive them out of business."

He didn't even have to. While Ron Paul's supporters are extremely zealous, Ron Paul himself doesn't give a shiat. He's been carrying Romney's water since last summer. His feeling--and he basically even said it at one point--is that "Mitt Romney seems to be a nice family man. I'd be happy to step aside for him". The closest Romney had to come to "buying him off" was to spout some nudge nudge wink wink about auditing the Fed.

Stop referring to Ron Paul as a "libertarian". He is not. He's a hyper-conservative neo-confederate who would gladly let state governments oppress women, minorities, and the poor.

That's not libertarianism.

I don't think this can be stressed enough. RON PAUL is perfectly OK with the government shiatting all over your civil liberties as long as it happens on a state level.

Well then, I guess the few libertarians I know aren't libertarians after all, since they feel the same way.

I'm not sure what they are though, since they like to think the local government is easier to fix if they start stomping on your civil liberties. It's not, oddly enough, because people don't pay attention to local politics until it is far too late.

Maybe they would start paying attention if it changed, but I doubt it. The majority of people ignore local politics to focus on other things in their life, like putting food on the table and worrying about their electric and phone bills :P

Depends a lot on who you talk to. It's a very poorly defined idea set. I'll assume we're talking about the more intelligent libertarians rather than the nutballs like the teabaggers.

LouDobbsAwaaaay:Every time I've talked to a libertarian, their principal concern is that government shouldn't interfere with personal decisions like who is denied service for any reason.

The main concern that libertarians seem to have is with this interference on a Federal level because they find that to be oppressive - while oppression on a state level is OK because they have a larger granularity of voting power and movement from local area to local area is easier than movement from nation to nation. They believe that government shouldn't interfere, as a general principle, but also want to allow local government to interfere if that's what their electorate wants.

LouDobbsAwaaaay:When the inevitability of racism/sexism/etc. is brought up, they always appeal to some nebulous force of "society" that wouldn't let that happen. "Well I would never eat at a restaurant that advertised For Whites Only. The free market would drive them out of business."

Which is libertarianism's fundamental flaw. They understand the cut-throat nature of free market capitalism when they're talking about how it would drive innovation (and many libertarians are for nebulous ideas like nonspecific anti-monopoly laws), but don't think that same human nature applies to social dealings. People are assholes, and libertarians expect people to focus all of that asshole nature on business.

meat0918:I'm not sure what they are though, since they like to think the local government is easier to fix if they start stomping on your civil liberties.

That is completely relative to what state you live in though. I'm in Kentucky, which needless to say, is an evangelical red-ass state. I can't see gay marriage ever being legal here unless it comes on down from a federal level. Hell, we just got rid of common law marriage laws, and they mostly affected straight couples. Sometimes, you do have to force people into acting rightly. This is never ideal, but it's at least pragmatic.

Stop referring to Ron Paul as a "libertarian". He is not. He's a hyper-conservative neo-confederate who would gladly let state governments oppress women, minorities, and the poor.

That's not libertarianism.

Not a troll-question: Isn't that what libertarianism is? Every time I've talked to a libertarian, their principal concern is that government shouldn't interfere with personal decisions like who is denied service for any reason. When the inevitability of racism/sexism/etc. is brought up, they always appeal to some nebulous force of "society" that wouldn't let that happen. "Well I would never eat at a restaurant that advertised For Whites Only. The free market would drive them out of business."

That part of it fairly libertarian, but if you look at what Ron Paul and many other libertarians say, it appears they would be fine with state-level bans on abortion, or birth control, or whatever - which is the point that Zerochance made above.

Actual libertarianism would preclude state interference in private individual's lives. The divide then comes between individualists who deny any community or communitarians who deny any individualism.

My preference would be a sensible balance of the two, where businesses are not treated as individuals and individuals are not treated as cattle.

Paul has a real chance to be nominated. This is not over, not by far. The blatent illegal dealings by the RNC and Romney camp are coming under fire and it will be messy. They are going to force delegates into an uproar on the convention floor. We have lost our free election process because the powers that be are scared to death that the people will get what they want. Paul as the nominee. Just read the headline of the article and you can see that this has gone too far. There are now no holds barred. This is going to be fierce and savage like, as the media does their last ditch efforts in concert with the RNC to take down the man that people desperately want to run as the Republican nominee. We have lost our freedoms and rights and you now know who to blame for that.

Sometimes I wish I could believe something that hard. It must be an interesting way to go through life.

mat catastrophe:That part of it fairly libertarian, but if you look at what Ron Paul and many other libertarians say, it appears they would be fine with state-level bans on abortion, or birth control, or whatever - which is the point that Zerochance made above.

On a conversation on federal powers????? OMFG shut everything down. Now ask any libertarian friend on whether your state and your local should have the power and most will say no.

Saiga410:mat catastrophe: That part of it fairly libertarian, but if you look at what Ron Paul and many other libertarians say, it appears they would be fine with state-level bans on abortion, or birth control, or whatever - which is the point that Zerochance made above.

On a conversation on federal powers????? OMFG shut everything down. Now ask any libertarian friend on whether your state and your local should have the power and most will say no.

Which is why Ron Paul is not actually a libertarian. He would say yes.

Sorry. The fact that he assigned his lawyers the job of making sure Ron Paul gets no voice at the convention while at the same time inviting Donald Trump to take part in whatever idiotic show they have planned only solidifies my opinion that Rmoney is a douche.